Witness to the German Revolution by Victor Serge Page A
Authors: Victor Serge
Tags: History, Germany, 20th Century, Europe, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Modern, Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Former Soviet Republics
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police offensive against the factory committees and the KPD will stave off the danger. During the recent general strike, there were more than 200 random arrests in Berlin. The following day, more than 10,000 workers were sacked by way of reprisal, and the SPD minister Severing dissolved the Berlin organization of Betriebsräte (factory councils). The banned organization transferred to Jena (Thuringia), that is to say, it went underground. Searches and arrests followed. Almost the whole of the Berlin committee of the KPD is behind bars, as are almost all the Communist municipal councillors in Berlin. Die Rote Fahne has been confiscated several times this week, and has now been suspended for a week. The Communist newspapers in Wroclaw, Magdeburg and Hamburg have been confiscated or temporarily suspended; the conference of the KPD in Württemburg has been banned. It is said that the appropriate ministers are considering prosecuting the arrested militants for high treason. Providing the ministers in question arenât themselves locked up before the preliminary investigations are completed!
Hail the fifteenth zero!
The police are certainly very useful to a bankrupt bourgeoisie; but the eminent financial expert and socialist Hilferding, even with the assistance of all the republican and monarchist jailers in Germany, will have a hard job to get his masters out of the difficulties they have got themselves intoâ¦
On August 15, the money issued by the Reichsbank aloneâfor cities, large credit establishments, railway companies and states of the Reich are also issuing paper money for absolutely incalculable sumsâcame to 116,402,548,057,000 marks. Please note that this number has 15 figures. But since then it has been exceeded to some tune. From August 8 to 15, only 54,000 billion marks were
issued; today, the floating debt of the Reich is more than a trillion, that isâimagine it if you canâa thousand million million⦠On August 15, on the other hand, the entire gold reserve of the Reichsbank did not exceed 516 million, whereas it was more than a billion on January 1 this year. Yet nobody is proposing to charge Herr Cuno with squandering state funds. And inflation continues, with all its consequences.
Weâll remain with these consequences, since there has just been mention of excessively high wages. Wholesale prices of butcherâs meat increased between tenfold and twentyfold during August; in many places, a comrade from Die Rote Fahne notes, in a whole month no more cattle have been sold for slaughter than on a single market day in 1913. As there are at least two markets per week, consumption of meat has fallen about sixteenfold. 103 In fact, meat has become a rare dish, reserved for the rich. Prices continue to rise madly. Since the advent of the Great Coalition, the shopkeepers who fought against Cuno have set all their prices in gold, according to the exchange rate for the dollar. A tram ticket costs 150,000 marks. A newspaper costs between 200,000 and 400,000 marks. A loaf of bread sold for ration coupons has risen to 520,000 marks, and bread coupons, a tiny but significant benefit for working class households, are going to be abolished. A pound of butter costs between three and four million, an egg has risen to 380,000 marks. All prices change from one hour to the next, making amazing leaps in the course of a single day, according to stock exchange rumors and the whim of traders. Postal rates and railway tickets are now calculated in gold, which for the first fortnight of September means a letter within Germany costs 75,000 marks. A meal in a cheap restaurant costs two to three million. And an employed comrade, a skilled worker, who has two children to feed, has just
told me that in August she earned about 90 million. Doubtless citizen Hilferding thinks that is too much.
All the public baths in Berlin have closed; they were losing money. The phenomenal prices of food, electricity, gas,
Hail the fifteenth zero!
The police are certainly very useful to a bankrupt bourgeoisie; but the eminent financial expert and socialist Hilferding, even with the assistance of all the republican and monarchist jailers in Germany, will have a hard job to get his masters out of the difficulties they have got themselves intoâ¦
On August 15, the money issued by the Reichsbank aloneâfor cities, large credit establishments, railway companies and states of the Reich are also issuing paper money for absolutely incalculable sumsâcame to 116,402,548,057,000 marks. Please note that this number has 15 figures. But since then it has been exceeded to some tune. From August 8 to 15, only 54,000 billion marks were
issued; today, the floating debt of the Reich is more than a trillion, that isâimagine it if you canâa thousand million million⦠On August 15, on the other hand, the entire gold reserve of the Reichsbank did not exceed 516 million, whereas it was more than a billion on January 1 this year. Yet nobody is proposing to charge Herr Cuno with squandering state funds. And inflation continues, with all its consequences.
Weâll remain with these consequences, since there has just been mention of excessively high wages. Wholesale prices of butcherâs meat increased between tenfold and twentyfold during August; in many places, a comrade from Die Rote Fahne notes, in a whole month no more cattle have been sold for slaughter than on a single market day in 1913. As there are at least two markets per week, consumption of meat has fallen about sixteenfold. 103 In fact, meat has become a rare dish, reserved for the rich. Prices continue to rise madly. Since the advent of the Great Coalition, the shopkeepers who fought against Cuno have set all their prices in gold, according to the exchange rate for the dollar. A tram ticket costs 150,000 marks. A newspaper costs between 200,000 and 400,000 marks. A loaf of bread sold for ration coupons has risen to 520,000 marks, and bread coupons, a tiny but significant benefit for working class households, are going to be abolished. A pound of butter costs between three and four million, an egg has risen to 380,000 marks. All prices change from one hour to the next, making amazing leaps in the course of a single day, according to stock exchange rumors and the whim of traders. Postal rates and railway tickets are now calculated in gold, which for the first fortnight of September means a letter within Germany costs 75,000 marks. A meal in a cheap restaurant costs two to three million. And an employed comrade, a skilled worker, who has two children to feed, has just
told me that in August she earned about 90 million. Doubtless citizen Hilferding thinks that is too much.
All the public baths in Berlin have closed; they were losing money. The phenomenal prices of food, electricity, gas,
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